I didn’t have high hopes for [[imdb:0298814 The Core]]—I chocked it up as a rehash of most every other disaster flick out there. Thankfully, it was better than that, but not by much.

Its definitely a sci-fi movie, weighed heavily with special effects, but characters are fairly well written, and well performed by the likes of Aaron Eckhart, Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo, and Hilary Swank.

The pseudo-physics are slightly distracting, although they far outweight other blockbuster disaster films such as Armageddon. Overall the movie was entertaining, and not so full of itself that you end up resenting it.

I absolutely loved HBO’s Mr. Show, so when its creators and writers took some of their recurring characters and turned it into [[imdb:0258100 Run Ronnie Run]], I was keen to see it.

One of the best parts of this movie was people spotting. Many of the show’s actors have returned to the screen. There are also many cameos by all sorts of strange people, Gary Shandling, Jeff Goldblum, John and Rebecca Stamos, Dave Foley, Mandy Patinkin, the South-park creators Matt and Trey, Ben Stiller, Scot Thompson, the list goes on and on. Bob and David obviously have a big following in Hollywood, or move in the right circles.

There are some very funny bits to this movie, but it is not non-stop hilarity. It is definitely one of the better comedy-sketch-show-gone-movie adaptations I’ve seen, especially comparsed to SNL’s miserable failures. It is definitely crude and obscene at points, but I was laughing quite hard at too many points to count.

If you loved Mr. Show, you’ll like this movie. It isn’t quite as good as the show, but its good enough to entertain.

[[imdb:0290334 X2]] is the latest installment of the X-Men comicbook movie adaptations. It mostly picks up where the last movie left off, only now the different factions of X-Men must band together to fight off carefully crafted anti-mutant sentiments.

I didn’t know much about this movie when I sat down to view it, and that might have helped my enjoyment. I also never read the comics, so I would have expectations and therefore no let down there. I appreciate the fairly heady themes that are presented in this movie, you could view the strifes the mutants have in the world of men as a thin metaphor for any outsider.

The effects are amazing, which almost goes without saying now. The actors all do a fine job, and wow is Famke Janssen hot.

Overall, this movie was very entertaining.

[[imdb:0292506 The Recruit]] is an interesting, but Hollwood, look at the way CIA agent are trained. James Clayton (Colin Farel) is recruited into the training program, but soon gets lost in a web of deceit.

This movie isn’t the most original or complicated, although I think it tries to be both. Not to sound like a know-it-all, but I saw the ending from the very beginning. But this is Hollywood, so its all about entertainment, so I could suspend my disbelief.

I also take slight issue with some of the dramatic license used, I really doubt some of the tactits shown would actually be used by the CIA.

Anyway, not much of a review, but the movie was worth seeing. And kudos for whoever got Clayton using Opera instead of Internet Explorer, I think that’s a first.
On the other hand, I’ll have to take points away from the screen dumps of seemingly Visual Basic code that Clayton is typing. Shahhhh, whatever.

[[imdb:0314353 Tears of the Sun]] is yet another military action/drama, about a soldier who defies orders, saves innocent people’s lives, and becomes the hero. Its not really that original a story, but its entertaining enough.

I’m not a huge fan of Bruce Willis, I’ve never seen much range in his acting. Monica Belluci is beautiful as ever, but her character makes me want to strangler her. She’s quite unappreciative of the danger she has put herself in, which just annoys me.

There are certainly plot issues with this movie, but I appreciate the reality that this movie sheds some light on—there are conflicts going on all over the world where atrocities are being committed, and we’re not doing a damn thing.

Technically, the war tactics are probably pretty good. The idea that a 15-20 year career military man would suddenly blatantly defy orders is highly unlikely, as is a SEAL team burdened with 30 or so civilians taking on a group 10 times bigger. But so be it, its a movie.